


be one traveler

by peskylilcritter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Everyone Is Alive, M/M, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2019-11-29 09:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18221399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peskylilcritter/pseuds/peskylilcritter
Summary: In a different universe Derek never fell in love with Paige, which changes more things than he could ever have hoped.Of course, waking up one day to find that your entire dead family is just fine can mess with a guy's head a little.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> working title: Alive Hales AU
> 
> I started writing this fic years ago and never actually posted any of it.
> 
> Since I was working on it last night I've decided it's time for the first chapter to go up. I can't promise regular updates or even an update within the year so. Proceed with caution.
> 
> title is a quote from robert frost's "the road not taken"

Stiles wakes in a bed. Which is where he went to sleep last night, except this isn’t his bed.

Before he can open his eyes to try and figure out where the hell he is, there’s a rumbling groan from his right. It takes him a second to understand what it means that he can hear and feel it. A quick glance confirms that it’s Derek. Jesus. He’s in bed with Derek Hale. Oh God, he’s going to die. Derek is going to kill him.

A voice interrupts his freak out. “Calm down. You’re safe here.”

Stiles flails upright. The voice belongs to a woman, probably about Dad’s age, sitting in a desk chair; there’s a book open on the desk at her elbow. She looks kind of looks like Stiles imagines Derek would if he were a girl-

“You’re Talia Hale,” Stiles says, before he can stop himself. There’s a thump as Derek falls off the bed.

He gets to his feet quickly; crouching, claws out, eyes glowing-

“Oh, Jesus.” Stiles has never seen Derek’s eyes glow gold. “Dude,” he says, with feeling. “Your eyes are golden.”

Behind him, Talia makes a noise that sounds like confusion. Derek’s claws disappear and his eyes are suddenly back to their non-glowy green.

Stiles is back to freaking out. “What is going on here?” he asks, more to give voice to his confusion than because he actually expects answers. It takes him a moment to realize that Derek and Talia asked the same question, all in sync.

Stiles begins to laugh.

*

They’re sitting at one end of the gigantic dining room table, drinking coffee.

Okay, Talia is drinking coffee. Derek is staring into his mug as if it might reveal the secrets of the universe or something, and Stiles is clutching his between both hands. He thinks it might be the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

“Look, Mrs. Hale, I went to sleep last night in my bed in my dorm room and last I heard Derek and Cora were the only surviving Hales and my buddy Scott was the alpha. And Derek’s eyes haven’t been gold since years before we even met.” He finally takes a sip of his coffee. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on her and its really freaking me out.” Shit, he needs to calm down. His voice went a little – a lot – high-pitched at the end there and his lungs feel a bit tight. He gulps down half his coffee and redirects his focus to the nicks and scratches on the table. A few of them look like they were made by claws. Jesus. Okay, think about the Jeep. The seat under his ass, the wheel under his fingers, the rumbling of the engine vibrating through his entire body. His breathing eases. He looks at Talia, tries not to notice the tension Derek is radiating. She looks back.

“You came home the day before yesterday for Laura’s wedding,” and Jesus, Stiles thinks Derek’s about three seconds away from popping claw, “and no one’s heard from Cora since she… left, three years ago. Your friend Scott is human and Derek’s eyes have never been anything but gold. As for not knowing what the fuck is going on, perhaps we should visit an old friend of mine. He’ll help.” Talia smiles. “It’s what he does.”

Stiles stares at her and her unwavering smile until Derek shits in his seat. He glances at him and stares at Talia some more. Finally he sighs. “At least tell him to keep the cryptic bullshit to himself, please. The trousers of time are hard enough to deal with without Deaton’s special brand of weird.”

Talia looks surprised for the length of a heartbeat (and Stiles’ heart is still going kind of fast), and Derek finally looks up. The surprise in his expression lasts longer. “You read Terry Pratchett?”

Stiles licks his lips. “I used to.”

They stare at each other until Talia clears her throat. “Let’s have breakfast before we leave. You can tell me what I need to know when we get to the clinic. That way, you’ll only have to tell your story once.”

Stiles gulps his coffee in response and watches her get up and head to the kitchen, presumably to get food. Derek has gone back to staring into his universe-secret-revealing mug.

Jesus. Stiles can totally empathize.

*

The vet clinic looks the same as ever. As it turns out, Deaton is equally unchanged. Stiles relaxes marginally even as he feels Derek tense up behind him.

Talia and Deaton exchange friendly greetings and small talk while Stiles and Derek fidget and stop breathing, respectively. Finally there’s a pause in the conversation and Stiles grabs on to the opportunity.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’d really like to get home before my dad has a chance to panic. And I think Derek might pass out from lack of oxygen if you make us wait any longer,” he adds, because he can’t help himself. Derek pinches his arm in retaliation and Stiles steps on his foot because that hurt, okay?

Deaton smiles serenely and opens the little gate to let them behind the counter. Talia and Derek walk past without touching any of the wood. Mountain ash, Stiles remembers suddenly. Scott mentioned that. Scott, who – Stiles checks his phone – probably doesn’t even know he’s missing yet. God.

He jumps when he suddenly realizes that someone is standing right next to him; looming and way too close for comfort. Shit, he’s lost time, just a minute but he really shouldn’t get lost in his own head like that, not now.

Still- “Dude, back up. You’re in my bubble. Again. What is it with you and personal space invasions? Seriously.”

He and Derek are still standing really close and they’ve been holding eye contact for at least two minutes and if this were a rom-com there’d be dramatic music playing in the background and they’d both lean forward a bit and Stiles would close his eyes and –

Someone clears their throat and Stiles jumps away, snapping his eyes open. He’s off balance so he flails a bit until Derek’s hand around his arm steadies him. He can feel himself flushing. Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Derek justifiably panics and Stiles runs into some very familiar faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its camp nano, folks, and i started working on this when i got stuck on my other fics. also, i found my lost notes again!
> 
> WATCH OUT theres a time skip between the first chapter and this, because i wasnt prepared to write Deaton's tedious crypticness.
> 
> have fun!

They’re sitting at the gigantic table again, drinking coffee, although there are significantly more people. Stiles is not awake enough to care.

He and Derek are sort of leaning against each other but he doesn’t care about that either. And anyway, after a night spent cuddling like puppies, keeping each other from falling over at breakfast is a lot less weird than it would have been yesterday.

A tangled mass of light brown hair slumps into the chair across from him. Stiles squints and discovers that there’s a face wearing a familiar scowl in the depths of the hair, before it disappears into a huge mug. The movement dislodges the oversized shirt a bit and Stiles catches sight of a constellation of moles.

It takes him a minute to figure out where he’s seen it before and then Derek suddenly tenses beside him and he realizes that his mouth was faster than his brain. Again.  
“Laura?” Derek echoes.

Her face emerges from the mug with a truly terrifying glare. Stiles cringes. He has no brain-to-mouth filter this early in the morning. Which he apparently also says out loud.

At the head of the table Talia sighs loudly and then lets everyone in on the whole alternate realities thing. Stiles turns his attention back to his coffee and leans more heavily against Derek.

And if Derek leans into the pressure? Well, Stiles isn’t going to tell.

Laura snickers into her mug. Great.

*

They wait for word from Deaton.

Stiles gets to know a few of the Hales, avoids Peter as much as he can and does his best to keep himself distracted.

He finds two laptops in his and Derek’s room (still weird), figures out which one is his and is relieved to find other!Stiles uses the same password.

*

On the fourth day, Stiles and Derek are woken by someone jumping on top of them. Stiles flails and shouts as the weight on his stomach shrieks a little girl shriek. And, okay, that’s Derek’s five-year-old cousin Thomas.

Thomas is giggling and he’s still trying to catch his breath when he realizes Derek is no longer on the bed. Stiles can ‘t see him anywhere on the room and he’s all set to start panicking when he hear a deep groan from what seems to be somewhere on the floor beside Derek’s side of the bed. He gently pushes Thomas – still giggling – off him and leans over to check.

Derek gives him a squinty-eyed glare and Stiles suspects he’d get smacked round the back of the head if Derek weren’t hopelessly tangled in his blanket.

As it is, he says, “Hey, Thomas, come look at this!” and then he can’t hold back the laughter bubbling in his chest.

*

Apparently they got woken up for a reason.

Today is Laura’s wedding.

That’s.

Well. Terrifying is a good description.

There will be people. People who are not werewolves or weird magic dudes or related to to people who are. Strangers Stiles is supposed to know. God.

Of course, everything gets more terrifying by about three orders of magnitude when someone finally realizes Derek doesn’t know he’s Laura’s best man. (Actually, Laura calls him her maid of honor when she bursts into their room to tell Derek this but Derek looked genuinely murderous when Stiles called him that.)

Derek panics for a few minutes until Stiles has the brilliant idea to look through other!Derek’s stuff for his best man speech. The search takes up the next hour and they waste another half hour trying to get into other!Derek’s laptop, unsuccessfully.

Apparently Derek is actually good at choosing passwords no one will figure out, possibly better than Stiles. (To be fair, Stiles and other!Stiles led very similar lives until they were sixteen. Derek’s life is vastly different from other!Derek’s.)

So, no best man speech to just read off. That means Derek has about – Stiles checks the clock – five hours to write a new one that won’t sound weird to any of the aforementioned wedding guests.

Stiles leaves him staring down at a notepad and spends some time looking for Talia. She’s Laura and Derek’s mom, she’d know the most about their childhood, right? She can help with this.

(Stiles can’t help. Up until a few days ago all he really knew about Laura was what she looked like ripped in two in a dirt grave. That is not useful information for a best man speech.)

Presumably Talia is with Laura, helping her get ready, because Stiles can’t find her and no one else seems to know exactly where she is either. In fact, Stiles only finds people under the age of eighteen in the house until he gets to the kitchen for the third time.

“Oh, fuck.” It slips out of his mouth before he can stop it, making at least two of the older teenagers shout at him from all over the house because there are small werewolf ears listening.

From where he’s standing by the coffee machine, Peter gets that amused little smirk that was the only expression Stiles ever saw him wear besides rage.  
“I might be offended if Talia hadn’t filled me in,” he says, spooning sugar into his mug. “Coffee?”

“Uh, no?” Stiles gets out. “I already had my one allotted cup of coffee for the day.”

Peter shrugs. “Suit yourself. Who’re you looking for?”

He looks so much like the Peter Stiles knows that he has to consciously remind himself that this version isn’t going to try to kill him or Derek. He swallows and says, “Talia. Is she with Laura?”

“Yes.” Peter finally lifts the mug and takes a sip. “What did you need her for? Anything I can help with?”

Stiles squints at him. This is super weird but at least he looks less worryingly familiar now. “Maybe. Derek’s trying to rewrite his Best Man speech. You were around when he and Laura were little, right?”

Peter nods. “Most of the time, yes. He’s up in your room?”

Stiles twitches at that but nods. “Last I saw he looked like he was gonna start tearing his hair out any second. Literally.”

“You know, he actually did that once, by accident, when he was... oh, about twelve, I think. He was just growing into his strength and when he pulled on his hair it just ripped right out.” Peter laughs. “Oh, you should’ve seen the look on his face.” He drains his mug and puts it in the dishwasher. Then, still grinning, he winks at Stiles and leaves the kitchen.

A moment later Stiles hears the creak of the third step up the stairs. If they don’t kill each other, maybe Derek’s speech will be finished by the time he has to give it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when we all thought pre-fire peter was the cool fun uncle?
> 
> ah, good times


End file.
